What Is Going On In His Head?
(A Guide to Understanding the Way Women Communicate)
By James Ashley
Lots of people will tell you that communication is key in a relationship, and they’re right but for a lot of us that piece of advice doesn’t get us all that far. We all know we need to communicate but what that should actually end up looking like practically is often a bit unclear.
Why is it that guys can talk to and read their friends without even thinking about it and girls can do the same but as soon as a guy tries to understand a girl all his intuition and context cues go out the door?
The age-old joke that guys are hopelessly oblivious and girls are astronomically complex is rooted in a seed of truth but a large amount of the misunderstandings between the genders comes from us being fundamentally different.
Guys think and communicate in a totally different manner than girls do and understanding those differences will make you far more prepared to flourish in a relationship.
How guys communicate.
- As a general rule guys are more practical rather than emotional. If a guy says “your makeup looks really good today” he means just that. Something about your face made him notice you look especially vibrant today. This does not mean he thought your makeup looked subpar yesterday. For the most part you can forget about finding hidden meanings when talking to a man.
- The practical mindset also means oftentimes minimal verbal engagement is exerted. If you ask a guy how his day was and he says “good.” it doesn’t necessarily mean that he doesn’t want to tell you more about his day, he simply answered the question at hand. If you ask him for more details every time he answers you with “good.” eventually he will learn that when you ask him how his day was, you’re really asking what he did today and he will begin to expand on his answer. This example perfectly illustrates a large amount of girl/boy misunderstandings. When a girl asks “how was your day” there are a whole slew of implied follow up questions: What did you do? Who was there? Did they say anything about me? What are you doing tomorrow? Whereas when a guy asks another guy “how was your day” there are no hidden questions. The expected answers are “good”, “fine”, “not great”, and possibly one or two variations of those. If he truly wants to know more about the other man’s day he will ask what follow up questions are applicable. So keep in mind: if a man doesn’t expand on his answers and it feels like pulling teeth to have any conversation with him just know that this is the normal flow of conversation for him. Be patient and train to know the amount of information you want from him. Hint: explaining to him the implied questions once or twice might help him comprehend what you want from him better.
- Lastly, it’s important to know that even though a guy is probably baffled by the way you think and communicate, this does not at all mean that he wants you to try and change the way you think or communicate. Let’s take this example: If a guy likes a girl then once he’s worked up the courage on his own he will go up to her and say “hey, I like you. You want to go out sometime?” Whereas if a girl likes a guy she will be nowhere near as straightforward and a guy wouldn’t want her to be! Just as a girl would most likely be weirded out by a guy giggling and throwing looks at her across the room a guy would likewise be thrown off by a girl marching up and declaring her affection for him.
The roles are just as they should be and are a blessing as they are. To change them would wreck the core of what romance is. To understand them is to learn the dance and thus be an enjoyable partner.
What Is Going On In Her Head
(A Guide to Understanding the Way Women Communicate)
By Elizabeth Kate
You don’t know what you don’t know, so this article will be dedicated to enlightening men on some simple facts about women that will ease the complication of communicating with them. Here are three basic things to know about womanly communication (or the lack thereof).
Women are emotional communicators
This fact is pretty obvious, but it is crucial to keep in mind when communicating with a woman. All women are created differently of course, but as a general policy, emotion can be a major deciding factor in what comes out of a woman’s mouth. While men are more prone to letting the rational and the practical influence decisions, a woman’s natural tendency is to let the way things make her feel (and the way they make the people around her feel) impact her decisions. Both propensities are needed and useful in different ways, but sometimes the mixture leads to confusing discourse.
God gives us emotions for a reason, but ignoring logic for one’s emotions can allow oneself to be misled. This can happen from time to time when a woman feels passionately about something. This means that sometimes (and by not any means always) women’s arguments have no logic in them as they are fully emotional. And when a woman’s emotions tell her something, to her it becomes the gospel truth. This, of course, does not always mean she is right. It is helpful to know that a woman being told she is wrong because she is emotional about something will do no good and most likely bring out the monster in her. Tip to men: do not under ANY circumstance, suggest that a woman’s hormones are the reason for her disagreeing with you. It may be true, but do not (for the sake of your safety) say it.
All this is to say, the key to communicating with a woman is to go into the conversation knowing that what does not seem worthy of emotion to you, will evoke lots of emotion in her.
Women don’t want you to fix them
Men have a desire to fix problems. And this is a great quality. Helpful for fixing problems. If there is a solution to a problem, a man will find it. And that is super useful. However… There is one problem that does not need to be fixed, and that is your woman. Women are complex, and quite frankly a mystery (even to other women sometimes).
If a woman trusts you enough to tell you something that is bothering her, or something she is struggling with, good job, she feels comfortable with you and wants to confide in you. She is looking for someone to listen and care about what she is saying. What she is not looking for, however, is your brilliant advice on how to fix that issue. And you may have the exact solution she needs. But that is not why she confided in you. If she wants a solution, she will ask. But, for the most part, when a woman is letting you in on her struggles, she is looking for consolation and for you to comfort her, but also validation. She wants to know that she is right to be upset and that her issue is a real issue. She is not looking to be shown how simple of a solution there is and that she shouldn’t be worked up. Even if that isn’t what you say, trying to fix her issue will make her feel that way.
Women have unspoken expectations
Any man who has been in a relationship will understand this one. One moment everything is fine, it’s going great. The next, nothing’s changed (that you can tell at least) and it’s still going great…Or is it? She hasn’t said that something’s wrong, but you can tell something is. She won’t tell you how, but you know that you have messed something up.
Men will just say what they would prefer, or what they would like to see happen. Women, though, have a tendency to not. But why would you say what you’d like when a man should already know? A woman has pre-conceived notions about what she wants most of the time but doesn’t always verbalize them. When you don’t meet these expectations, she normally won’t verbalize that either but will make it known that you have failed without telling you how or at what. As a woman, I have been very guilty of this. On the flip side, men can be painfully oblivious sometimes. Couple that with a woman expecting you to know what she wants without telling you, and you get a comical mess of men and women desperately trying to understand each other. Men, you may wonder “What is going on in her mind? How on earth was I supposed to know that?” Well, right back at you. Women are thinking “What is going on in his mind? How on earth did he not know that?” What women sometimes see as a lack of care, often is just a lack of the ability to read minds
Men, why do I share this information? Because when a woman is upset with you, she doesn’t want to have to tell you that she is. When you ask what’s wrong and she says, “I’m fine,” men, she is not fine. Do not accept that answer. Sometimes girls want space, but more often they will appreciate you caring enough to know when she is upset and asking her why. She may not want to start a fight, or seem needy, so she may try to act like nothing is the matter. If you can tell she’s not ok, don’t let her be not ok by herself. If she’s mad at you, the quicker you address it the less time she’ll have to stew on it, and trust me, that’s valuable.
God created each part to complete the whole. Life is a dance, and it’s tricky to always know the right step. The differences in genders are perfectly designed to create a lifelong quest of growing and learning to compromise. God could have made it easy, but where would be the fun in that?